


in lucid dreams he'll sing.

by リリス - riris (arurun)



Series: in memory of the ones that live again. [11]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, Domestic Fluff, Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante Lives, Gen, Human Experimentation, Law Doesn't Leave the Donquixote Family, Medical Experimentation, Pre-Canon, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arurun/pseuds/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%20-%20riris
Summary: MX-413 has an awry pain sensory system, a loose screw in his head, and a few too many years of memories in his little ten-year-old body.The Donquixote Pirates get a new kid, Baby 5 loves her new big brother, and Rocinante is not allowed anywhere within ten feet of this one.
Series: in memory of the ones that live again. [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1458094
Comments: 29
Kudos: 400
Collections: Reincarnation and Transmigration, oc self insertSI





	1. escape (for freedom brings)

MX-413 blinks, and suddenly, he knows how to read.

He wakes up one day, laying on his surgery table, and he just somehow  _ knows _ what most of those things were called.

That’s a scalpel, and those are surgical scissors. That’s a syringe, overhead lights, test tubes, and an unnaturally-coloured IV drip, leading into his veins. 

He stares at the lights, blinking in the phosphenes, then closes his eyes. He curls his fingers, rubbing across the calloused palms, the chapped skin, the lightly stinging scabs in the corners of his fingers.

They’re different from how he remembers them.

He sighs. He’s been reincarnated somewhere very annoying this time-- where is he, anyways? Some sort of mental facility? 

-

Dizzy.

He wants to throw up.

Ugh, his back hurts. There shouldn’t be an injury there, though. Why does it hurt? It’s like a burn. It hurts. It hurts. Ahhh, it hurts so much.

The cold wall beside him and the colder floors under him. Chains on his wrists. Pure whie, pure white, pure white everywhere. The lights. The sheets. The walls. They’re all white, white, white.

It’s such a contrast. Everything was red in his past life.

But the chains never change.

They still weigh heavily in his hands and feet, the chafing there a permanent scar across both lives, so deep it’s in his chest.

Ah, fate. 

Will he be a slave, no matter what? Will even death not release him from this curse? It’s hilarious. Reincarnation, and this time he’s born into slavery instead of cast into slavery. 

Peace was never an option, ha-hah.

Who exactly did he spite, that god has cursed such a shitty fate upon him?

He just wants to be free. Instead, he lives and dies in chains, and wakes up again in chains. He just wants to die. And now he lives again just to suffer.

Death isn’t an escape, huh?

-

**_“MX-413,”_ ** the doctor reads off his file, like he was a new piece of meat to dig into.

His arms are chained heavily, as usual. He sits on a chair, facing an adult, a prisoner he’s never met before. He amusedly dubs him ‘Mister Orange’, because he has orange hair.

Mister Orange is struggling against his restraints. He’s tied with his arms behind his back, legs to the foot of the chair, gag in his mouth and blindfold over his eyes. 

It’s interesting because MX-413 is sitting comfortably with half a tonne of chains on himself, nervous and curious, but not nearly as scared as Mister Orange was.

**_“Beginning Trial #1.”_ **

And then, the doctor stabs Mister Orange with a dagger.

Mister Orange lets out a surprised yelp. 

MX-413 screams at a tearing pain on his back, suspiciously near the spot Mister Orange had been stabbed. His hands clench tight over the armrest, and he bites his lip until it bleeds. 

The nurse tugs down his shirt, rubbing a hand over the spot that hurts. MX-413 cringes from it-- though from how she’s dragging her fingers over it, there’s no physical injury. Then why does it hurt? God, it hurts like shit.

A whimper escapes him.

The doctor drags the knife out of Mister Orange’s shoulder.

A wail rips from MX-413’s throat.

He can nearly hear the smirk when the doctor jots down his very, oh-so interesting research progress. “It’s a success,” he declares. 

Then, he picks up a gun. 

**_“Moving on to Trial #2.”_ **

-

MX-413 lived his meager ten years of life, just like that.

Experiments, sleep; trials, nightmares; pain, pain, pain. Pain that most of the time doesn't belong to him but it still  _ hurts. _

He lives, identified only by the numbers on his wrist and the Hoof of the Soaring Dragon on his back.

He isn’t human. He’s just a guinea pig in the labs of Mariejois, forever trapped.

There’s no point in escaping. He knows now that there’s nowhere to go. Not even death can release him from this pain.

In his past, he had legs that could jump as high as the birds, and run as strong as the bulls. He had arms that could shatter trees, and a pride as firm as a cornerstone.

And yet, in that very past life, his entire family was enslaved, and he died unfulfilled. What can he do in this life, when his arms are now as weak as helpless little prey?

Nothing. He can do nothing.

He’ll simply have to wait for the bells to toll for his next life, and suffer all over again.

Or perhaps, he can wait until his hair finally bleeds from blonde to white, and his soul is consumed by the demons, corrupted beyond salvation.

Maybe it’s already at that point.

-

Then it comes. A chance.

**_“Happy tenth birthday, MX-413,”_ ** the doctor gleefully announces,  **_“you’re being scrapped.”_ **

Injected with something that’s at least three times past lethal dosage, MX-413’s last moments are of him being tossed with the garbage, broken and twisted in directions that shouldn’t be.

There’s water, and there’s pain. There’s darkness, and then there’s death.

And death, to him, is liberation.

To this day, no one is quite sure how MX-413 stood up and clambered out of the waters.

All they know is that this slave, drenched in water and fueled by hatred and madness, picked up a knife and ran amok in the nearest town from there.

He had managed to kill at least a hundred people before he was finally held down, apprehended, and handed to the marines.

**_-_ **

**_“And here we have a glorious one for all of you!”_ ** the announcer is so enthusiastic, MX-413 can’t help but smile and wave, just to help him out. 

He’s gratified when the crowd looks away, a few in disgust, a number with interest.

The human auction is huge. 

People have masks on, and though most of them wear classic masquerade masks, there’s a few with huge bubble helmets-- they kinda look like astronauts, and he finds that amusing. 

He’s seen them before in Mariejois, so they’re probably Celestial Dragons.

**_“He may be young, but he has killed a total of two-hundred and thirteen people on his own! He’s hard to train, but easy to restrain! And he’s sturdy, too!”_ ** the announcer hypes up the group,  **_“hear this! No poison of any sort is capable of killing him!”_ **

His chain is tugged, and he lifts his head.

**_“Most of all, these angelic looks! The platinum blonde hair! Is there a better depiction of a demon in disguise?”_ ** the announcer dramatises, then stage whispers,  **_“it’s bodyguard and eye-candy all at once! You ought to grab such a rare gem while it's young and malleable, right?”_ **

MX-413 looks at the shackles around his wrist. 

They’re a comfortable weight, they almost feel right at home there. The bomb collar around his neck is thick and clunky, but they’re like a scarf, if mufflers were made of unshatterable metal and would kill you if you so much as touched it wrong. 

It’s okay, he loves the thrill. Maybe it’ll kill him? Yay!

**_“Two hundred million!”_ **

**_“Two hundred fifty million!”_ **

**_“Two hundred seventy five!”_ **

**_‘Three hundred million!”_ **

He tossed a metal badge into the air, and caught it. He spun it around his knuckles, and flipped it into the sky again. He’s having fun.

**_“You little shit!”_ ** the announcer hisses sharply at him, soft enough the crowd wouldn’t hear, and he clumsily snatches at the boy’s hands, making the little button badge fall to the floor.  **_“When did you take that?!”_ **

He scrambles to pick it up, and MX-413 simply giggles.

He turns back to the crowd, and this time, MX-413 stops his gaze upon a certain figure in the crowd. A large, pink furred coat-- no, the whole crew was motley, from the large blue striped man to the tall, bright one with a sword… 

He blinks with interest.

The man was smiling, but once MX-413 looked over, his face fell into something like a frown. He wore sunglasses, but somehow, MX-413 knows their eyes are meeting.

In response, the boy brims into a sweet smile.

-

**_“Do you have a name?”_ **

MX-413 tilts his head to the side.  _ Was it not already implied that he was MX-413? _

The man, his new master, is really tall. He’s crouching down, yet he’s still taller than the boy. He’s flanked by his crew, or his family? His people. They’re all staring at their new slave like he’s very interesting. 

**_“I’m gonna guess that means you don’t have one. How old are you… you probably don’t know that either, huh.”_ **

He knows, he knows. He’s ten! Like, a few weeks or months ago… huh? Was it a year already? He’s not sure. Nevermind then.

He raises his hand when prompted, and his master slots the key into the hole. With a few clunks and turns, the handcuffs make a sharp clatter, and they loosen.

He believes he’s past the point of this sort of surprise, but he can’t help but feel shocked. His eyes widen, and he stares at his hands, not too sure why his master released his shackles.

MX-413 stiffens, watching his master as the man carefully removes the metal cuffs from his wrists, inspecting the scarring and running a gentle hand across the brand. 

They’re red and chaffed, the skin red and bare from the long run of metal against flesh. 

**_“This is terrible,”_ ** his master frowns.

MX-413 freezes where he stands, staring fearfully at his master, biting down on his lip. 

What’s going on? Is this  _ that _ ? Why is he doing this? Treating him so gently? Maybe he wasn’t bought to be trained combatively. Maybe this master wanted him for his looks and--

**_“Why do you look so scared? You were so confident up on stage, weren’t you?”_ ** the man chuckles, and his voice is deep, like bells.  **_“Let’s go back to the ship. We’ll get you cleaned up, then we can introduce you to the rest of the family.”_ **

Immediately, his arm is seized by a girl, a very cheerful little girl that squeezes his arm tight like it’s a teddy bear. 

**_“Let’s go! Let’s go!”_ ** she says, and MX-413 finds himself tugged forward, following the crowd of adults forward to wherever.  **_“Young Master doesn’t like it if we’re too slow!”_ **

His steps are light, and for the first time in more years than he has any right to imagine-- he’s walking without chains.

For the first time in both lives, he’s truly, completely _ free _ .

It’s when he takes his third step, when they walk out of the shadows of the building into the sunlight-- that his face wrenches tight, and he starts sobbing.

He rubs desperately at his face, tries to stop, but it doesn’t work.

No one stops him. No one turns to look. The girl beside him is smiling, leading him onward, and once in a while, there’s a pat him on the head. 

MX-413 cries. And he cries. And he keeps crying.

-

Fate has a Desire Sensor. 

You will never get what you want if you wish for it with all the desperation of your soul. But if you wait, patiently-- your wish will certainly come true one day, at a time when you least expect it.


	2. heart (open up, and let us in)

“So, why the sudden urge to buy a slave, Doffy?”

Doflamingo honestly isn’t sure, himself.

They mostly attend human auctions out of boredom. There’s nothing in the slave market worth their time or money, but it’s always good for business when the biggest sponsor shows up and throws around a few bucks for show.

He doesn’t have any qualms about kids in his pack. This kid is about Buffalo’s age, and Baby 5 is younger than that. 

“It’s funny, don’t you think?” Doflamingo says, “in that hall, the one having the most fun was the slave on the stage, put on display like butchered meat.”

It was fascinating. 

He’d never seen a kid like that before, smiling with pride at the aspect of killing a few hundred people, amused by the fact that he will never be more than a pet and a tool.

“He reminds me of myself, really.”

Surely, one more kid with a loose screw in their head will not make much of a difference.

Plus, a kid like that will probably grow up to be some yucky bitch’s sex slave and Doflamingo did  _ not _ like the idea of that at all.

-

The boy is, by rough estimation, probably ten? He’s small and malnourished, so maybe a little older. Baby 5 isn’t that much shorter… oh well, Giolla can handle making a few clothes that aren’t pixelated nonsense.

Once Doflamingo gets the chains off, he cringes. 

The chains have made their mark, not just in the red and brown scars, but in the way they left permanent dents into skin, and his wrists are frail and thin. His neck is blue and purple from years of bruising.

Giolla immediately claims the kid, and off to the bathroom they go. Baby 5 salutes them with a prayer of luck for their newest brother’s sanity.

They’re all impressed. His hair looked brown from the stage, but after a good scrub-down, it was as platinum blonde as the announcer sold him for. 

He’s swimming in his clothes, the baggy long sleeves going much past his fingertips and his pants held up by rubber bands. 

He trips over his pants cuffs on his second step, and magnificently faceplants on the deck. Everyone converges on him in a panic, but other than a nosebleed, he’s fine.

There’s a unanimous decision to carry him around until they get him better clothing. He weighs next to nothing, anyways. Even Baby 5 can cart him around on her back.

They’re just worried Rocinante will set him on fire, or Vergo will accidentally break him in half, or Giolla will crush his ribs in a hug. 

Yeah, Doflamingo is handling the kid from now on.

He’s strangely passive. He lets them do anything they want, and never gives more than a positive nod or shake of his head when prompted. He never asks for anything more, and always listens to requests with immediate attention.

When he’s set down, he stands there until further instructions are given. If left alone, he stands by Doffy’s door and stares into the sea, never sitting down or venturing about.

It doesn’t take long for them to realize the boy’s still acting like a slave, and to him, Doffy’s just his master that isn’t too interested in using him.

-

"It's MX, so maybe Emex?" 

Doflamingo walks in on a very interesting conversation between a few of his family members. Senor Pink and Giolla share a drink under the moonlight, and Gladius is sitting by the bow, entertaining Baby 5 with very small and soundless explosions.

"MX… What about Mix?" 

"That's not cute!" Baby 5 whines, looking up. 

"Why does it need to be cute?" Gladius sighs, “he’s a boy, so he might want something cool instead.”

“No, it has to be cute!” Baby 5 puffs up her cheeks, and no one wants to deal with a tantrum at this hour, so Doflamingo interrupts with a rough head pat.

“Oh, young master,” Senor greets him, “were we too noisy?”

Doflamingo chuckles. “Not at all,” he assures. Baby 5 pouts up at him for messing up her hair, but Doffy smiles back fondly. “You guys are thinking up names for our newbie?”

“We can’t keep calling him ‘hey’ or ‘you’ forever, after all,” Gladius says, “MX and 413 are both too long, and when we ask the boy, he doesn’t seem to know what names even are.”

"Then," Doflamingo decides, "how does 'Miki' sound?"

There’s a pause.

Then Baby 5  _ sparkles _ , “that’s it!!”

-

Everyone has a different mission now.

Baby 5 is supposed to drag Miki around everywhere she goes, whether to have fun or to explore or to jump into the sea like idiots. (Lao G is supervisor in charge.)

Giolla and Senor are in charge of his health and hygiene, which includes finding him clothes that fit and finding out what he likes and doesn’t. (They put Miki in a dress as a joke and have the gall to look proud of it, so Doffy almost throws them overboard.)

Rocinante, Diamante and Trebol have one rule-- they're just not allowed to go near the kid. At all. (They hold up signs that say ‘boo to tyrannical Doffy, let us touch the kid’ in protest.)

Meanwhile, Vergo and Gladius try to teach him how to read and talk. They find out that the kid understands every single thing they do and tell him to do, but somehow, not a word ever comes from his mouth.

“He’s like you, Rocinante,” Doflamingo observes amusedly, “well, I can understand why he doesn’t want to talk. Maybe you two can get along.”

Rocinante responds by grabbing the kid on the head and chucking him out to sea.

Rocinante now walks around wearing a sign that says ‘I AM NOT ALLOWED TO TOUCH THE KID’.

-

“Senor, you got a knife in your back!”

When Trebol says that, everyone panics. They had just gotten out of a fight, returned to base-- and suddenly someone notices the trail of blood Senor is leaving.

Senor himself is the most shocked by everything. 

“You didn’t feel that?!” Giolla asks, brows raised, “what are you, Vergo?!”

“Don’t bring me into this.”

“It’s bleeding really badly!” Pica opens the door to the med bay.

“No, seriously-- it doesn’t hurt at all. Maybe it’s not my blood…”

Doflamingo frowns at it. It’s common for his family to hide wounds from each other, but never have they ever denied treatment once found.

“Something’s wrong with Miki!” Just then, Baby 5 runs out from the galley. She spots the returning group, and she’s flustered. “Young master! Miki is--!!”

They find Miki curled up at the floor, holding onto his back, whimpering in a sort of pain.

“Miki! C’mon, up boy,” Diamante urges him, and the boy curls into the man’s chest, still squirming in pain. 

“What’s wrong?” Doflamingo asks. He turns to Baby 5 and Buffalo, “did he get hurt?”

The two frantically shake their heads. “We were just eating!”

“Then what, a tummyache?” Doflamingo takes the boy from Diamante, immediately cradling him in a practice motion. He notices the boy is holding onto his back, and reaches up to tug the shirt away. There’s no injury…

There’s no reason this kid would cry this bad just for a stomach ache. Miki is stronger than that, he’s been (accidentally) stabbed by an enemy before and he smiled through the stitches. They were fairly sure he had really bad pain sensors.

“How’s Senor?” Doflamingo asks.

“He’s fine, but he's getting stitches and full bed rest for a couple of days,” Gladius reports, “he lost a lot of blood, that moron.”

Doflamingo raises an eyebrow at that. “And yet Senor insists it didn’t hurt?”

Miki sniffles into his shoulder. Doflamingo rubs the child on the back, trying vainly to soothe him. Whatever it is, this kid was hurting so much he was actually crying? He hadn’t cried since the day they got him… 

(No… no way.) And suddenly, a thought rises in his head-- and it lines up. There’s no way this could be true… and yet.

“Did Miki… take his pain?”

That was only the start of the weird.

-

“Does this hurt?”

Doflamingo pinches Baby 5 on the cheek and pulls. Baby 5 looks indifferent. Miki reaches up and holds his cheek.

Then Doflamingo reaches over and punches Trebol. Trebol makes an undignified squawk, then gets back up, “Doffy!!” he complains.

Miki squeaks, holding his head and crouching down, curling into a teary-eyed ball.

Doflamingo hums, making his observation, “he can feel the pain of anyone else around him, though--” he flicks Miki in the forehead. Miki knocks back, but only looks annoyed. “--he can’t seem to feel pain from his  _ own _ injuries.”

“He’s so weird!” Baby 5 says, brightly.

“The injuries don’t transfer, but the pain certainly does,” Senor says. He’s still lying on his bed to nurse that injury, but they’re having this conversation in the infirmary so he can be included. “And even if I eat painkillers, he doesn’t feel the difference.”

“Then we just have to give Miki the painkillers, right?” Giolla says, her hands already on the pill bottle. 

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Gladius says, “too much of that in his body might have adverse effects in the long term.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine if we only use it once in a while,” Doflamingo assures him, “he’s too small to have to deal with some of the worse wounds we suffer.”

That, everyone agreed.

“Rocinante, you’re now not allowed to set yourself on fire anywhere around the kid.”

He had never looked more offended.  **_“I don’t burn myself on purpose!!”_ ** he frantically signs, but Doffy only laughs.

-

Taking too many pills isn’t the problem, the family soon realizes. This kid doesn’t want to take anything that looks like a pill.

“Miki, I promise it’s not poison,” Doflamingo says, not for the first time.

But Miki holds his hands stubbornly over his mouth, defying an order for the first time ever. Doflamingo would feel proud of this little dumbass if it weren’t for the situation.

Diamante almost lost a lung to a stubborn seastone bullet. Miki’s hurting bad enough to cry and it’s obvious he can’t breathe right through the pain. 

“C’mon, a few months ago Buffalo jokingly offered you poison and you gladly drank it,” Giolla chastises, “poisons don’t affect you anyways, so it’s fine if you eat it, right?”

“Is it because it’s a pill?” Pica wonders. “Kids hate pills.”

“Is that something he’d defy us for?” Senor raises an eyebrow, “let’s just mix it in his drink or something… okay, nevermind.” He backs off when Miki hisses at him, obviously not liking that suggestion either.

Rocinante hands a piece of paper to Doflamingo. “Maybe he doesn’t want us to use important medicines on him?” he reads it.

Miki flinches. 

“Alright, guys, grab him,” Doffy orders, “we’re stuffing it down his throat.”

Miki starts running, but Senor dives into the deck after him.

They’ve long grown tired of Miki’s slave-time habits. They’ve gone to the point of forcing him to engage in fluffy family bonding, so this is not going to be any different.

Love is tough, and Miki is going to learn that now.


	3. healing (sleep in safe arms)

Machvise rubs the ointment generously around Miki’s wrists before wrapping the bandage around it. 

The scarring was permanent, but they had to do something about the damaged skin and blood flow. The boy still couldn’t move his fingers all that well. They were applied around his neck, and so most of him was wrapped like a mummy. 

Miki was pretty fine with it, though Doflamingo considered alternatives soon. For now, he needed medicine, but soon enough, they’ll heal and he won’t need bandages anymore.

Surely there were more comfortable ways to hide his scars…

“Offie!” 

Doflamingo jerks right out of his sleep. He stares at the wall, very confused. Then he swerves and nearly clocks the child beside him, but he misses. 

The child doesn’t even blink, instead smiling brightly, “Offie, land!”

In the most undignified manner possible, he grabs the boy, dashes right out the door, busts down the entrance to the galley, and holds Miki up before everyone like little simba. 

Miki looks at him, very confused. Everyone else is half-awake and having their breakfast. “What’s wrong, young master?” Gladius asks, setting down a plate of food for Pica.

Miki blinks, “offie?”

And the entire room erupts.

“HE SPOKE!”

“FIRST WORDS! GET THE TONE DIAL!”

“THE TONE DIALLLL!!”

“GIOLLA! GIOLLA! MIKI SAID SOMETHING!”

-

“So if I hand you a knife, what do you do?”

“Stab!”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Senor officially comes to the conclusion:  _ None of these guys should ever have a baby. Absolutely none of them _ . 

Geez, are half of these people absolutely insane? Not that Senor can say anything about that in all honesty, but  _ still _ .

Senor is very mirthfully now aware that his family is nuts, and he takes Miki away from Gladius before slamming the door behind him.

In a few more hours of being passed around, Miki is the official Senor’s kid, and he straight up shoots anyone that tries to teach Miki anything weird.

“But Senor, he’ll definitely need swordsmanship one day! He stabbed me, look!” Diamante dramatically shows off his bleeding side, like it’s a new medal of pride.

Giolla is holding the first aid kit behind him with a placating scowl.

Ah yes, that explains why Miki is crying. For fuck’s sake, Senor is going to throw half of these people overboard.

“Miki, try saying my name,” Machvise crouches down, and Miki stands before him with a smile. 

“Vise!” Miki says. After a few months of active vocal training, he’s capable of pronouncing accurately, though long words are still tough.

“Hey, Miki,” Baby 5 is suddenly there, “call me Onee-sama!”

“Onee-sama!” Miki cheers. Baby 5 has the gall to beam at that, absolutely enamoured by the respectful address despite the fact that Miki was older than her. Then Miki asks, “what’s that?”

“It’s what you call pretty girls like me,” Baby 5 lies, a hand at her chest and the confidence of a lying goose in her veins.

Senor swirls on them, “stop taking advantage of the situation!”

It’s a little too late, because Miki absorbs everything like a sponge and there’s no Undo button. 

He calls every girl Onee-sama from then on, and arguably, it’s pretty useful when you need a pretty old lady to swoon over your child. Senor feels himself wanting to strangle Trebol every now and then.

-

Miki stares up at Rocinante.

Rocinante tries not to stare back. It’s one thing if he throws Baby 5 and Buffalo across the sky and into the trash pile, but if he throws Miki anywhere more than a feet away and onto cushions, Doffy will sic Senor on him. 

He sighs. He just wants the kids out of this dangerous pirate family… maybe Miki’s the exception. He was a slave, after all. Even if Miki leaves, there’s nowhere he can go.

The more Rocinante tries, the less his goal is in sight. Maybe he should just give up on making the kids leave and just continue on his attempts to take Doffy down from inside. He’s finally made it to Corazon’s seat, after all.

Ah, this is a pain in the ass.

“Ro-sshi,” Miki overenuciates his name, and Rocinante kinda wants to pinch those cheeks. Miki tugs at his coat, and curls into it, “fluffy!”

Rocinante takes a shaky drag of his cigarette.

Okay, calm down. The cig is already lit. He just needs to stay calm, take one drag, blow. He won’t set himself on fire if he does that, right?  _ Right? _

Oh god if he sets himself on fire while Miki is on the coat he’s going to be traumatized for life. Not the kid,  _ Roci  _ is going to be traumatised. The kid will probably laugh.

Okay stay calm stay calm stay calm--

“AHHh!! Cora-san’s on fire!!”

_ How the fu- _ \- he drags the coat off his shoulder, and Miki conveniently latches onto his neck in the swing. He quickly stamps the fire out, and breathes out a sigh of relief.

This is hopeless. 

He inspects Miki for injuries while the child is beaming, excited by the near-burned experience. “Rosshi!” he cheers.

Rocinante purses his lips.  _ Oh no, _ he likes this kid.

“Yeah,” Doflamingo chuckles from the side, “he does that to you.”

-

_ “Rocinante, why are you crying?!” _

“But Sengoku-san, he’s just so cute!!”

-

At some point, Miki began to accompany them on their missions. 

The kid was an absolute delight. 

Senor would pluck a grenade and toss it behind him, and Miki would stare right at the explosion, fascinated. Diamante gave him a little dagger for self-defense, and Miki would always hug it. 

Doflamingo once told Miki to ‘go run wild’ at a pirate group they were supposed to decimate, and it turned out they didn’t need to do anything that day. 

It’s beautiful.

Miki is thin, small, and his muscles are weak-- but his sense for battle far surpassed Pica’s. 

It’s as if he knows just how to dodge to sustain the least damage, and he only needs a few seconds to find an unguarded spot on his opponent’s back. He leaps at the exact right spots, and every surface is a floor to him.

He doesn’t have enough strength to stab his knife deeply, so he only manages plenty of minuscule cuts in various spots. But that’s enough, Miki’s weapons are always coated in Desert Scorpion poison.

Doflamingo thinks this child will be fearsome once his muscles are fully grown again. 

-

Miki injured his wrist at least thirteen times trying to kill a man, and in at least two of those times, he broke a femur with it. 

He would be trying to dig his knife out of a dead body, and he’d tug it so hard his fingers snap back all the way in the wrong direction once the knife comes loose.

Does this kid have zero pain sensors or something? 

He doesn’t know how much strength to use, because there’s no warning system to tell him how far is dangerous for his own body.

(And yet, he can immediately tell when Baby 5’s feet are sore in her flats.)

One time he snapped his elbow out of place, and they are now trying to convince Miki to become left-handed instead because that’s not something that heals.

It’s now his fourteenth time with a cast, and Doflamingo decides he’s had enough. He has broken that bone more times than the years he has lived, for god’s sake.

Permanent damage aside, they need a precautionary measure.

Miki gets a pair of arm braces, leading from his palms to his elbows. And because he won’t stop brooding, they’re covered in fur just like Doffy’s coat. Except they’re white.

At least they don’t have to apply concealer to hide his scars anymore. 

He’s over the moon about his new fluffy arm guards, and well, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen him that happy, so it’s progress, perhaps.

-

“Baby 5, you’re the senpai, so take care of him, okay?” Diamante reminds them.

“Aye!” the girl salutes, and Miki imitates her.

They’re in a beautiful commercial town with a big amusement park (not as big as Sabaody though. Doffy thinks he’ll bring them there one day) and a lot of festivals. 

Of course, the kids are enjoying themselves. Miki hasn’t stopped staring at the ferris wheel yet, and even Baby 5 has noticed, so she immediately volunteers to be a big sister today. 

(No one has the heart or energy to remind her that she’s at least three years younger than Miki. I mean, if the dynamic works, who cares what she’s called?)

“And Buffalo, you’re the big brother, so look out for them, okay?” Senor warns, and Buffalo nods happily. He’s used to being the older kid anyways.

They’re handed a handful of cash, and Baby 5 cheers. Buffalo cheers too. Miki follows with a cheer of his own, confused. 

Miki is still learning a lot of things, but he’s grown a lot since the start. He’s eager to try new things out, not with orders, but out of childish curiosity. 

It’s like the shell of slavery has broken somewhat, and the child inside is finally trying to see the world, attempting to grow up and learn things like a human instead of a pet.

Buffalo carts them around, one on each shoulder, and they go explore. 

They buy ice cream, ride the roller coasters, put on weird souvenir hats, and drink fizzy soda that Miki decides he doesn’t like. By the time they get back, the sun is setting and they’re all jacked up in a few too many doses of sugar.

Miki is now addicted to sugar and Baby 5 is getting time out for being a bad big sister.

-

Giolla comes home with an extra baggage in her arms, and after hearing what he is, no one can tell her to throw it away.

The little fighting-fish fishman hybrid fits right in with the rest of them.

Buffalo nearly loses a finger, everyone sports at least one bite mark somewhere by the end of the day, and they find out the kid has teeth sharper than a dog’s.

Then Dellinger lifts a cannonball over his head and grins. He is currently two years old, the cannonball is about his size, bigger than his head.

Cue mass panic.

-

Letting Senor raise Miki is somewhat a good choice. Maybe because Senor is a killer for good fashion sense.

(No Pica, your shoulder guards don’t count as fashion. And Gladius, we aren’t putting the kids in your ‘steampunk’ fashion.)

Miki’s arm guards don’t fit into long sleeves, so the boy usually wears a sleeveless top with large, billowy capes or hoods.

They’re loose-fitting and warm and more often than once, Doflamingo finds Baby 5 and Dellinger inside there when they play hide-and-seek. Not that it works, they really make the cape bulge unnaturally.

Meanwhile, Dellinger is dressing more and more like Giolla and they're wondering if they should stop it.

Maybe not, Dellinger looks like he likes it.

-

The kids are sleeping on each other in the crow’s nest. Dellinger curled on Miki’s chest, Baby 5 leaning into his shoulder, and Miki’s cape draped a little over them.

Gladius climbs up and suddenly finds out that their lookouts haven’t been looking out at all.

Oh well.

He leaves them a blanket and decides to take over their shift.


End file.
